The lack of diversity within major tech companies is well-known, but it is within the power of executives to lead on this issue. Apple's CEO Tim Cook has taken a stance on this matter by making employee diversity his own mission in light of recently released statistics.
These numbers, detailed in a piece posted on the Apple website, show the lack of variation among the people at the company: Globally, 70 percent of the workers are male, and men dominate the ranks of the tech, non-tech and leadership sectors. The only category where women made up more than 30 percent of employees was "non-tech jobs," which comprised 35 percent women.
In terms of racial diversity, 55 percent of Apple's 98,000 employees worldwide are white. Among nonwhite employees, Asians were the best represented, at 15 percent.
With this information, Cook expressed his commitment to pursue diversity, not only by promoting recruitment but also through sponsoring equality groups and initiatives like the National Center for Women & Information Technology.
"As CEO, I'm not satisfied with the numbers on this page," Cook wrote. "They're not new to us, and we've been working hard for quite some time to improve them. We are making progress, and we're committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products."
Other major tech companies have already set a standard by making their lack of diversity well known as a means of "owning" it: Google and Facebook have been part of this trend.
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